'Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay'

This slim volume holds a collection of heartfelt stories about growing up gay, accompanied by photos.

“Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay”

By Paul Vitagliano

(Quirk Books, 128 pages, $14.95)

Thank you Lady Gaga and thank you Paul Vitagliano.

This delightful little book offers heartfelt accounts of men and women reflecting on knowing they were gay as children, and photos that all but shout: “I am fabulous!

And they are.

The brief essays come from Mexico City and London, all over the country and a few from New Jersey.

In fact, the funniest came from New Jersey, from Frank, of Little Falls, who shows a photo of him eating pizza in 1969.

“As a kid I dressed like Charles Nelson Reilly. I had posters of David Cassidy on my bedroom wall, and I owned my own food processor by the time I was fifteen! My father, God love him, tried his best to interest me in pursuits more traditionally masculine than shopping and reading Redbook.”

As funny as that is, he goes on, as so many in this book do, to tell of being bullied in school.

Paul Vitagliano, a deejay, who collected these stories to "show gay kids that they are not alone."Ted Flett

Vitagliano, a DJ, writes about finally sitting down with his mother, ready to make his “I’m gay speech.” Of course she knew. Mothers always do.

The boy wearing the plaid jumpsuit on the cover is Dennis. He was 3 when he struck that pose, and he writes: “It’s still amazing to me that my pose here was not a clear sign to my parents.”

Heather, of Guam, writes about being a lipstick lesbian and how her parents disowned her.

“I have missed out on a lot of my life but I wouldn’t go back into the closet for anything. After all, how would all my shoes and purses fit in there with me?”

The book, a sweet and fun reminder to accept all of our children takes maybe an hour to read, but that includes lingering over the photos, which truly deserve to be lingered over.